MIL confronted me and wasn’t ready for my response

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah. You should have just said, I am not sure what you mean Margaret.

OP here. You are probably right. It was very confrontational; there was a lot of anger being directed at me. And I wasn’t prepared for it. I think my knee-jerk reaction was, “honesty is the best policy.” I’m used to talking through problems or misunderstanding with my family and friends.

But I see your point and I think you are right. There was certainly nothing gained by being honest. But I think this is the first time in my life I’ve felt that honesty and trying to have an open dialogue did not help improve a relationship. This is just a new one for me.

What was gained was being honest. It does not sounds like you were being mean, just upfront. Oh well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah. You should have just said, I am not sure what you mean Margaret.

And the next line from me would have been “you need to discuss this with your son”.

I’d be tempted to ask her if she knew a single personal thing about me. Whose my best friend? What’s my middle name? Where did I spend summer vacations as a child?

Mine couldn’t answer a single one of those questions.

[Anonymous]

People who confront others with contemptful lectures of "here is what is inherently wrong with your personality" due to you feeling that your need to be babied is not me, what kid of respond do you expect? For us to say OK because you are emotional and "sensitive" and "emphathetic?"? Anyone who starts a discussions with "you know, you are..." I walk away. You can talk about a specific event that troubled you, but not about what is troublesome about my existence. And if you discuss an event that bothered you, I will analyze and determine if you are right or wrong. God is the judge, not you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, this is just a vent, and I’ll try not to be too long. My husband’s family gathers for a late beach weekend in VA Beach this time every year. MIL and FIL and I are not close, but we are certainly always nice and polite to each other. My husband’s younger cousins are now starting to date and bring people to events, and I think some of the dynamics MIL sees with her peers and their children’s significant others is triggering what happened yesterday.

We arrived later than most people because we chose not to pull our oldest out of school early, as her hardest subject happened to be the last one of the day. This was ultimately my husband’s decision; I left it up to him to discuss with DD, because this is his family’s trip. But of course MIL blames me that we arrive later than most people on Friday.

On Saturday afternoon, I am standing on the beach watching my kids when she comes up to me and says, “What did I ever do to you? I want to know. I want to know why you think it’s OK to be so cold and distant with me.” Not exactly a “could we have a discussion when you’re ready about ways we can forge a closer relationship,” but OK.

So I told her. I told her about all the times I’ve heard her gossiping about me behind my back, even in my own home, and all the times well-meaning family members have let me know what she and FIL say about me. (Which they shouldn’t have done, but when you hear the same thing from multiple people, you know it’s true.) I also said the way she and FIL gossip about their other DIL in front of me and the way they try to get me to say bad things about her and other significant others in the family has led me to distrust MIL and FIL and feel I cannot be close to them.

She immediately comes back with, “Oh so I’m not perfect and you’ll never forgive me. Not very ‘Christian’ of you, since you claim to be a ‘Christian.’” (She is also a Christian BTW.) And I said, “Forgiveness starts with accountability and an apology, so if you want to seek my forgiveness, I will absolutely listen.” And she barrels into, “Well don’t you think YOU have done things that hurt US over the years?” I said, “I’m sure the distance I have created to protect myself has been hurtful to you. I can recognize that. If there are specific things I have said or done that have hurt you, now is the time to tell me so I can reflect and apologize.” And that wasn’t good enough for her, she went into “Well we have bad memories so I can’t tell you everything you did to me.” And I said, “Let me know if you think of some specific things so that I can reflect and apologize.”

She then forces hugs and says this was great and cleared the air. Because she can’t take any accountability and can’t even tell me one thing I did to her. She is now going over the top nicey-nicey, but for me, I feel like drawing back and protecting myself even more. She is not close with my husband, or with her other son or his wife. But I guess I was the target yesterday.

Good for you. Forget the hugs and be polite and keep her at a long distance relationship.

[Anonymous]

People with bdp love to lecture others (people in their life) on how they are not submissive to them (the person with bpd). Think about it--do the rest of us take minutes or hours to tell another person you are awful and why?

https://www.reddit.com/r/BPDlovedones/comments/zla76d/did_they_lecture_you/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You did a bad job at gray rocking her and now you have to start from scratch. Sorry.

This. Pushy, gossipy jerks looove drama. She will rewrite whatever was said in her head. She’s love bombing you now. When your guard goes down her claws will come back out.

I am the poster who said you didn’t win. This is exactly why. This interaction, which makes you look bad on its face, will be distorted and expanded and spread all over kingdom come, and the worst part now is there will be a kernel of truth. Ugh.

Dp here. Both dh and I held our tongues and tried everything to smooth our relationship with our ils. When we backed off and stopped talking to them, they continued to make up lies about both of us and our children. It was embarrassing for them because the people they said things to knew us and knew things weren't true and could not be true. The ils knew so little about us, their lies were obvious to people who did know us.

Unlike you, pp, I think if we had spoken up more directly from the start we might have had a chance of getting them to understand there were boundaries they should not cross.

You’d be wrong. You can think that all you want, but these people don’t ever respect boundaries and aren’t going to start because you were rude to them.

Np — Can you please explain how OP was “rude” when she answered MIL’s question? Asked and answered.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. We teach toddlers this.

You don’t have to answer people just because they pose a rude question to you.

DP, funny tha MIL is not held up to your standard. MIL sure said something that was nice and that she did not have to say at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who confront others with contemptful lectures of "here is what is inherently wrong with your personality" due to you feeling that your need to be babied is not me, what kid of respond do you expect? For us to say OK because you are emotional and "sensitive" and "emphathetic?"? Anyone who starts a discussions with "you know, you are..." I walk away. You can talk about a specific event that troubled you, but not about what is troublesome about my existence. And if you discuss an event that bothered you, I will analyze and determine if you are right or wrong. God is the judge, not you.

You do get that OP did not start this conversation, yes?

You do get that MIL literally asked “what did I do to you,” right?

Your word salad really has zero to do with the OP’s situation. Triggered by it though you may be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neither of you have self awareness so you are likely to be at each other for much of the time.

Both think the other is the problem and that they themselves are doing nothing wrong.

Impossible to resolve a conflict when neither side has self awareness or takes responsibility. It will just go in circles of finger pointing.

Just let your husband go with the kids and you can stay home. Both of you will enjoy the time more without being around each other.

What do you think she should have done?

[Anonymous]

OP, you didn’t do anything wrong but you got your answer.

A lot of people struggle with acknowledging their weaknesses. That’s pride. Your MIL is proud. You can probably go back to being distant and it will be the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YIKES - You are awful. You seem so proud of hurting another person. I can think of 10,000 different ways this could have been handled. This is so very hateful. I'm sad you are like you.

Such as?

[Anonymous]

I have a mother like this. Here’s the thing OP. Now you know for yourself and your own integrity that you tried to have an honest dialogue. Armed with the outcome of how that went, you go grey rock and put up boundaries. Nothing else to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eh, I think OP did fine. MIL asked a question, OP answered. What other alternatives did the OP have? MIL starts on her tirade and OP says, “ You are right Marion, I am cold and distant for no reason.” I lay bets that MIL will come up with some of her own complaints very soon and will be either texting you or your DH with her grievances.

I think OP at least needs to think about the behavior that generated the supposed gossip. Does she not need to be accountable as well?

[Anonymous]

I'm with you OP. Your MIL sounds just like mine who has confronted me in the past as well. I've learned you reap what you sow. She cheated and divorced in the early 90s when it was trendy, thinking she'd find a fancier husband and that the children would be A-OK. Well, that never happened. She's late seventies now and single. The family isn't close and she's alone.

[Anonymous]

She is never going to change, OP. Just be fake nice from here on out and move on with life

[Anonymous]

Your MIL baited you and you fell for it. Now she has more fodder for her gossip. In the future, a simple, “what on earth are you talking about” is a much better response. You’ve just affirmed all the terrible things she thinks.